


Instruments of Cyanide

by gvarchangel



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 23:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gvarchangel/pseuds/gvarchangel
Summary: Jingles has never been a... stable individual. Nightmares from Eldritch Gods will do that. It only gets worse when the memories of your past life you repressed come rushing back.





	Instruments of Cyanide

Just because Jingles needed answers didn’t mean he wanted them… or that getting them would be easy.

Following the revelations in Iron Scar about what was happening with Arwen, Jingles took the group to the mystery-shrouded College of the Jester, hoping to at least get them to call off the kill order on his fiancé. And to see if there was a way he could find out who he was before he donned his mask. The former was out of the question after it was revealed that Arwen had helped her cult sneak into the College for reasons unknown, but he was given a path to the latter. Much like the Speaker of Destruction was exceptionally good at her job, the Speaker of Knowledge could give Jingles back all he had forgotten. If he could be reached in a small village even further north that was currently under siege by an army of undead.

The party managed to eliminate most of the undead before their leader, the ghost of a former Jester gone mad from his own returned memories, escaped and vowed vengeance. The Speaker of Knowledge repaid each member the only way he could: by answering any question they could dream of. Jingles used his to regain the memories buried in his brain, learning that he was formerly Ralrai, the unwanted child of an abusive half-elf without a home for over a decade before he found the Jesters. As he slowly remembered being half blinded by his abusive father, the years of homelessness as he ran away, the way his sisters either pitied or hated him, his mind grew even more fractured… And the dreams of the Old Ones no longer waited until he slept to haunt him.

Jingles grit his sharpened teeth, barely containing his urge to pace. This was more than his usual manic energy fueling him. This was anticipation, fear, excitement, adrenaline all coursing through his veins. It made his heart beat almost double time to the tune whispering into his mind. He had given up on drowning it out after deafening himself with Shatter. The faintest undertones still were there when he could hear nothing but ringing. He didn’t know if performing it would make the song go away, but he was a bouncing wreck as it was. It was worth trying.

He could hear Dandelion asking the others to shut up on the other side of the curtain. There were several voices that resisted with jeering jokes, some firecrackers tossed just to prove a point. But the chaos settled quickly. Dandelion’s suggestion that all come see the show hooked them out of pure curiosity. The Dean didn’t recommend lightly: she ordered for emergencies or stayed hands off. A suggestion meant this was something that caught her attention. And anything that could impress a spawn of the stars was not to be missed. With no ceremony beyond saying she expected a grand performance, she stepped aside and joined the crowd as it whistled and cheered for its comrades.

Geist was sitting at the piano, almost hidden behind the choir and a dozen other Jesters wielding cellos, drums, violins. Though silently bouncing with his own nervousness, he cracked his fingers readily. Jingles nodded back and scanned the others. The choir waved their hymn books happily, the curtain workers flew figure eights above them, the mages produced small sparks between their fingers. They were chomping at the bit to get this show on the road.

The three soloists showed they were ready as well. Bell’s grinning mask stared at Jingles, her lilac eyes glowing with excitement. Little Zann at her side gave a standing backflip as his confirmation he was ready to go. Only Mr. B stood off to the side where he would be hidden even when the curtain came up. It was no easy task hiding the towering dragonborn, but they managed it.

Jingles took a slow breath, clenching Jessie tight in his grip. It didn’t stop the music he heard or the trembling of his hands. He breathed again, forced himself to ignore it, and whistled a single sharp note.

The crowd outside immediately ceased its murmuring. Those in charge of lighting flooded the room with darkness, almost too black for even those of infernal blood to see in. Jingles looked back and locked eyes with Geist. Pulling the tempo from the tune still whispering to him, he patted it against his chest. It only took a few beats for the Jester on the piano to match it. The strings immediately joined him in haunting chords that complimented the piano’s slow melody perfectly. And better yet, it matched the one that haunted Jingles.

The Jesters flying above silently pulled the curtain away, almost imperceptible in the darkness. Bell smiled at Jingles and crossed the stage to the front. Geist began repeating the melody, now joined by a single set of drums that gave a syncopated rhythm to build upon. A single spotlight cut through the darkness, Bell’s thin form now sharply accented by the shadows behind her.

_Trapped within the silence inside, watching as the days go by outside… _

Her soprano tone was just loud enough to be clear without losing its haunting effect. She swayed in a vague dance reminiscent of a siren’s beckoning. Somehow both alluring and terrifying, Bell showed why she was one of the few who could feasibly usurp Pennywise as Queen of Performance.

_All this replacing, discarding my face in the hollow tune… The fall of the idol will tear us limb from limb, to where wandering is a sin, to where nightmares can begin… _

Anyone listening could feel the building, the movement of the song without being able to point to why. The strings and drums were slowly joining, perfectly matching their leaders so it sounded like a single instrument approaching. Jingles found himself barely conducting them from the shadows. They were getting there…

Bell’s growing strength made everyone feel the reason her beautiful singing was both wonderous and unsettling.

_This life did not choose us, it chose to consume us… _

Jingles channeled the magic of his nightmares into his fingers. Jessie vibrated in his grip like she was electrified as he began the first riff. She held together and perfectly captured the tune from some unknown realm. He breathed a quick gasp of relief as he pushed her into the next one. Bell’s voice grew over his instrument, now joined by the choir of Jesters behind them. The chanting ensemble crept forward so their costumed forms are hazy outlines at the barrier between darkness and light.

_To ready for the day we march with dread beneath the sway._

The final words grew to a near shout before cutting off entirely, punctuated by the disappearance of the spotlight. The other instruments silenced themselves as Jingles pushed more magic into his playing. For maybe four heartbeats of everyone else, easily seven or eight of his, it was only the tiefling and his lute playing chords without an equivalent in this reality.

A squadron of drums provided the tempo as the song moved into the next verse. More lights came alive in time with the down beat. Zann and half of the choir were standing on the right third of the stage, in line with but away from Bell. The lights on them wasn’t as sharp as her’s, making the dwarf visible while transforming his supporters into a mass of dark red and white. He belted out his part in a confident tenor, the chanting of the choir with him a supporting role.

_Dark nights are upon us. Black magic slays on the chorus… For the choir’s in tune with an angel. Foresight of the broken will chain us… May her demeanor combine us within sorrow and blindness… We’ll follow where the path of freedom can rejoin us now._

Jingles couldn’t tell what was shaking worse: his own arms of Jessie. It felt like the magic he was toying with might shatter her wood to a thousand pieces. His waking dream showed that not happening to the lute, but his arms. An explosion of blood and muscle, shards of his bones that would imbed into his mask as the music overtook him. The closer the sounds of the stage came to what he heard in his mind, the worse the fear and trembling became. He clinched his teeth and focused on what he knew was real. The music was close. He was the one who is making it here. Not Them.

Barely containing a yell in his throat, he slammed harder into the riff, building with the rest of the ensemble. He could feel the chorus coming. 

The choir’s chanting, the drums pounding, Bell’s shadowed dancing, the strings adding their haunting tune, Geist’s piano melody that held it all together: they all were growing. The lights were now barely pulsing to make the audience unsure of what they’re watching. Zann continued to sing strongly, bravely, blind to the true strength of his words.

_We bow before a fake, for goodness sake. Where’s the pride when we needed it to carry away… This decay has derailed, now she walks leaving trails of the damned! _

As the down beat crashed, the lights came alive. Jingles was finally illuminated, revealing his own small ensemble of a choir. The three leads formed a line across the stage that was the only clear thing visible. Everyone else was a hazy, shifting outline of movement just beyond the realm of perception. As if the shadows were squirming, living ink that hungered for those in front.

Jingles joined the other two in their howling of the chorus, still somehow keeping Jessie steady on her part.

_Fall into the hands of sorrow drawn by the darkest day! Walk into the pit of silence, I am the one calling your name! I, in the name of violence, sentence you down to Hell! _

All three sang as one, a perfect chord of different tones that seemed inseparable. The lights pulsed with each down beat, reaching a brief brightness that made him feel safe before the shadows ebbed their way toward him.

_Live or you will die! Just for my sake, fetch me the tools! So, I can create this instrument of cyanide! _

The lights and singers disappeared in a snap. The drummers and Jessie continued playing through the darkness, letting the audience know the inky shapes behind them had not claimed them yet. Jingles found himself spinning on his feet and angling towards where he knew Bell still danced. He forced himself to turn back to the crowd before the spotlight came back to him. Was it eagerness trying to push him to the climax already? Was the tune trying to ruin him? Was it afraid of him replicating it?

When the loose spotlight that was on Zann illuminated him, he was back in position and still playing perfectly. The stringed ensemble had grown significantly, enough that Geist would be drowned entirely if he wasn’t putting his own magic into his instrument. Somehow, the piano seemed more stable than Jessie. The piano wasn’t being forced to play something beyond what should be possible. That responsibility Jingles wouldn’t let fall to anyone else. Just like he wouldn’t let anyone sing his part.

_Dark nights have devoured us… I walk this river of conscience for a time where we come to escape here. This eye views an open vengeance… I’ve laid in here for the longest time! The deadliest choir chimes for my awakening! This reckoning will see the light tonight!_

The hairs on his body stood on end. Excited goose bumps? Magic? Was what he was trying to create finally about to take him? Would the scar on his eye grow and cover his body, burning him from the inside until he was only ash? In a snap, he focused and turned towards Bell in her slowly growing light. He made it clear she was the one he was singing at. Or at least what she represented.

_We bow before a fake, for goodness sake. Where’s the pride when we needed it to carry away… This decay has derailed, now she walks leaving trails of the damned!_

This time, he knew where the tingling sensation came from. He could feel the magic of not just him and Jessie, not just the lights and the flying Jesters. He could feel the magic of all the performers behind him. The perfectly timed crash of nearly two dozen singers hitting the chorus and just as many instruments landing on the note perfectly, sending a literal shockwave across the room. The windows and doors of the room rattled. Every member of the audience shifted as they were pushed back. Even other musicians seemed off balance by their own power.

The only ones unaffected were the three leads. They continued to belt the chorus out with a strength and perfection almost unbelievable. For a moment, Jingles swore he saw the outline of something in the shadows above the audience, its tentacles reaching him, Zann, and Bell. Something holding them like marionettes. But it was only there for a blink before their words seemed to banish it.

_Fall into the hands of sorrow drawn by the darkest day! Walk into the pit of silence, I am the one calling your name! I, in the name of violence, sentence you down to Hell! Live, or you will die! Just for my sake, fetch me the tools so I can create this instrument of cyanide!_

As the bridge arrived, Jingles began slowly approaching Bell. The dancing siren beckoned with a teasing hand. Zann and his choir, now under her spell, chanted and added to her haunting tune. Both Jingles and Jessie refused to back down to the opposing army singing at them.

_It is time for you to leave, or so it may seem… but there’s one more thing you have of mine, the core to my strings…_

Jingles barely noticed the fog of magic in the air, the building flames centered on him like a phoenix. He trusted the mages to handle the image: he focused on the words screaming in his brain to be sang, the chords that needed to be replicated perfectly.

_ Empower, desire to reignite the flames…_

Bell’s mask almost instantly melted into a thick, pale liquid merging with her face. As it slowly regained solidity, it became clear it wasn’t joining her. It was replacing her.

_So, as you ascend to the Heavens now, I’ll drag you back down to Hell. Listen to me!_

His shaking almost overtook him as his flames began to die. The only thing that kept him playing was his repeat of his line, his declaration. He had a waking dream of the fire around him scorching his costume, could almost smell the burning of his flesh.

_Empower, desire to reignite the flames…_

Her eyes changed colors. Not to a demon red, not to an icy blue, not to a predator’s yellow. They became a perfect emerald green… Arwen’s.

_Your friend is now mine! All mine! _

All he could do was get his scream in the same key as the chord playing around him.

The shadows swallowed them all. Not simple darkness, but writhing tentacles of ink and malevolence. Geist and his violins continued to play from some unreachable depth. They were still in the room but seemed somehow in a different reality. Like some crude imitations from the Sunken City had taken their place and were mocking the room with their playing.

Jingles saw the shape with both of his eyes, and the gasps of the audience proved it was not all in his mind. What was scattered, squirming tentacles coalesced into a single shape, a misty outline all the clowns shuddered at in nightmarish, vague remembrance. The head was nebulously kraken-like on a body that insulted reptiles of this plane, but even that was only a guess: the entire form was a swirling shadow that refused to be truly classified. It was a saving grace that the darkness saved anyone from seeing the details of the monstrous shape.

A low, booming voice sounded from the monstrosity, perfectly in time with the music of Jingles’ mind and Geist’s piano.

_And when the ashes have spread apart… It is then… I’ll take out his heart._

Jingles knew and silently screamed at himself that it was Mister B… but his mind couldn’t shake the idea that something else was using the dragonborn to toy with them.

He realized a moment before the downbeat that he’d collapsed. Jessie still buzzed like a hornet in his arms even without his magic adding to hers. There was a heartbeat where he worried he wouldn’t make it before the tune demanded his presence, but he scrambled up in time. The darkness clouding his vision became blood red as he stood, summoned every flicker of energy in him, and pushed it all into Jessie’s next chord.

The lights came alive, finally revealing all of the performers on stage. The choir and three leads were still in their assigned spots, but the others were above them. They were floating, rotating in a loose formation and playing their hearts out as the final chorus began. The wispiest trail of darkness and ink connected them even as they danced around each other.

_Fall into the hands of sorrow drawn by the darkest day! Walk into the pit of silence, I am the one calling your name! _

Jingles and Jessie began turning back towards Arwen again, as did Zann. When she turned to face the him, it was clear she was no longer a friend. And the tenor’s allegiance laid with her.

_ I, in the name of violence, sentence you down to Hell! Live, or you will die! Just for my sake, fetch me the tools so I can create this instrument of cyanide!_

Flames built again around Jingles while the final verse approached. These had to be real: he could hear the hiss of his sweat as it evaporated. He approached the false Arwen before him, now wearing those damned robes of the Silencers. Zann and his minions were similarly dressed and supported their new queen with enthusiastic chanting.

_It is time for you to leave, or so it may seem… _

Jingles felt his strength and flames fading, almost in time with the approach of the tenor’s army.

_Dark nights are upon you… black magic slays on the chorus!_

Arwen took the energy of her minions and began to sing even stronger. Her slow dance was one he hadn’t seen in months. It was one she created, one she only performed if they were alone and he was singing for her. His knees were becoming weaker with each of her entrancing motions.

_I’ll drag you back down to Hell, listen to me!_

Jingles focused on the pain of the growing flames eating at his back and the lightning running through Jessie’s strings. He felt barely alive, only just strong enough to sing the next line.

_I’ve waited here for the longest time!_

The opposing forces met in Arwen’s central spotlight. Jingles’ dead eye saw the now-opaque tentacle of ink reaching from the creature made of floating Jesters. It reached down to ensnare Arwen’s neck. He could almost see it match her pulse as it ensnared her face, swallowing her.

_Your friend is now mine! ALL MINE!_

There was still a hint of green in the eyes being buried in liquid shadows. They cried out into his mind, drowning out the music with a single word… It fueled the rage and desperation in his voice as he sang the final words.

_SHE WILL BE FREE!!_

Jessie almost leapt out of his hands as she played her final chord. He didn’t care. It accomplished what he wanted. Their combined magic sent the flames in a blazing eruption, overtaking the entire stage. The tendrils were burned away instantly, leaving the clowns beneath them unscathed. Arwen’s eyes cut through the fire and smoke with the strength he had always loved in her.

He barely heard Geist finishing the song with his violin supports. They wound down with the same melody it started with, slowly dying instead of growing. The flames had already faded and left them in utter darkness. Both of his eyes frantically searched for any trace of the living shadows and found nothing. Only the panting shapes of tired Jesters remained. The final notes of the song faded away without any echo in the performance hall. The audience remained frozen in time.

Jingles looked to Arwen again, the only clear thing in the darkness. Her mask was gone, but her costume had returned. Not a wisp of ink remained on her perfect face. Those emerald eyes stared at him with endless words that couldn’t be said. They weren’t the same ones that she had when she was his: the beautiful mania they shared had faded… but they were hers. They were free. And that same love she held for him remained.

She blinked, and she was Bell again. Shorter, with lilac irises and the silence that followed a creature without the need to breathe. She smiled at him beneath her mask. Jingles did the same through a stream of tears that began sometime between the first chord and last. The Silencer robes on the others had already vanished. Their gaze no long felt confrontational, only proud. He doesn’t care if it was for him or themselves.

The crowd stood as one when the lights returned in force. There was a brief moment when that was the only true sound in the room, a few hundred feet striking wooden steps and supporting the weight of their owners. He forced himself to stop breathing and listen. The chanting was gone now, the strings, the piano, the unearthly chords Jessie replicated so well, even the growling voice from below.

A moment of peace.

Applause rattled the windows almost as strongly their chorus. Everyone floating lowered themselves back onto the stage, bowing and whistling with the cheers. Jingles, Bell, and Zann stood at the point. Jingles’ partners bowed graciously, Bell adding a few kisses to her adoring fans. The tiefling needed a few stunned moments before he could join them. He kept Jessie displayed proudly and used his other hand to point to her. She deserved just as much credit as he did.

On the fourth bow, his ears caught something buried under the cheers and fireworks in the air. An instrument… Or was it a dozen? Somewhere distant, beyond the College walls… but definitely there. The sounds the bizarre instruments made sounded almost like what they just performed. Almost. He strained to focus on the differences without result. The music remained a whisper somehow drowning out the lightest cheers of his audience.

But it didn’t scare him this time. The anxiety that haunted him when he heard the last tune wasn’t there. Maybe it was the humming of Jessie in his grip, the lute chomping at the bit to go again. He got the distinct feeling even if she exploded right now, she would still be ready to play the next tune from the Old Ones.

On the next bow, he instinctively looked back to the performers behind him. Their number seemed off. The choir that was with him, the crew that chanted their part like those that were with Zann, there was eight when they started. He knew that. Now there was only five near him now, the rest joining Bell. His gaze focused on the crowd as he came back up and easily spotted the non-costumed members. His four partners… the fifth behind him, bowing from the piano.

He smiled honestly through the tears and sweat, giving another gracious bow… Let them come. Silencers, Speakers, monsters, they would all fall. Jessie’s humming almost screamed in his mind that with these suicidal fools at his side, he needed nothing more. _They_ would save Arwen with him. Even if the Sunken Ones were waiting for this game of gods and mortals to end, it wouldn’t matter. Even if his knowledge of them and his memories were creating this damned tune in his mind, it wouldn’t matter. It would take more than that to stop them.

“Hold on, darling…” he whispered. “… Jingles won’t let them take you. And neither will his friends.”

So this was like the first thing I wrote in… a while, unfortunately. Between my old commissioner going silent and being busy as Hell with my new son, I’ve had a hard time finding time and motivating myself to write with what I do get. And then I had a dying urge to do so, followed by an obsession with a song I knew I could make something with. Which resulted in this: more terrible mental trauma for my clown!

Seriously, though, had a grand time with this one. Hopefully I can use this as a springboard to get back into the habit of writing again. Here’s hoping, anyway. But hope ya’ll enjoy this regardless!

The song is a slightly modified version of “Instruments of Cyanide” by DAGames over on YouTube. Seriously, watch the lyric video for it. It’s wonderful.

**Author's Note:**

> www.youtube.com/watch?v=30KNoy…
> 
> Again, I can't recommend enough you listen to the song. Both just because it's awesome, and because I feel like it gives you a great idea of what you can see/hear thinking of the show.
> 
> ANYWAY, enjoy some more angst with my poor murder clown. Things are going to work out in the end for Jingles... I hope. 
> 
> And quick shout out to Reckoner-Lynx on DA for making the characters Geist and Bell! They're wonderful characters, and it's great to have someone helping make more Jesters!
> 
> Preview art belongs to nanshu29 on Deviant Art.  
Jesters are heavily inspired by the Jester characters from Darkest Dungeon made by Red Hook Games.  
D&D is owned by Wizards of the Coast.  
Bell and Geist belong to Reckoner-Lynx from Deviant Art.  
Jingles, the College of the Jester, and the story are mine.


End file.
